Michigan election fraud cited in Trump speech had no impact on votes

In a tirade against elections Thursday night, President Donald Trump ordered FBI Director Kash Patel to reopen an investigation into long-debunked anti-voting claims against a voter registration drive in Michigan in the lead-up to the 2020 election.

Trump presented the episode as an example of the kind of large-scale voter fraud that he has railed against for years. However, the case has been known about for years, and fraudulent registrations tied to the event were voided before the 2020 election.

In fact, authorities have said that it didn’t lead to a single fraudulent vote being cast. And Michigan’s chief election official, within minutes of Trump’s speech ending, labeled his claims “long-debunked and baseless.”

Indeed, the fact that Trump selected this episode as his best example of voter fraud for us in a primetime speech underscores the utter lack of substance behind his sweeping claims about election insecurity. 

In 2020, a worker for a Tennessee-based voter registration company called GBI Strategies turned in a batch of registration forms in Muskegon, a Democratic stronghold, that authorities said were fraudulent. 

The local clerk estimated that “several hundred” had irregularities like incorrect birth dates and signatures that didn’t match those on file.

In his speech, Trump alleged that canvassers “admitted to FBI agents that they signed voter registration forms in other people’s names, submitted fraudulent registrations for people who did not exist, and received gift cards tied to the number of applications they produced.”

“In other words, it was pay, play and cheat,” the president claimed.

State authorities investigated, and turned the probe over to the FBI in 2021. But no one was ever charged. 

That’s because, according to law enforcement, no evidence ever surfaced that the scheme involved anything beyond a low-level worker forging voter registrations, likely to increase their compensation. And no votes were ever cast via the fraudulent registrations.

“Any resulting registrations have been voided, and there is no expected impact on any election,” a police spokesman said in October 2020, ahead of the election.

But in 2021, the state GOP obtained a police report about the episode and provided it to the Gateway Pundit, a far-right news site, which published a story suggesting the state had covered up election fraud. From there, it became part of the right-wing echo chamber. 

“As health care costs escalate and millions of Americans struggle to make ends meet, the President of the United States chose tonight not to discuss any plans to address those critical needs,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said in a statement issued minutes after Trump’s speech. “Instead he chose to rehash long debunked and baseless conspiracy theories about an election he lost almost six years ago.

“But none of his rhetoric changes what’s true,” Benson added. “Michigan’s elections are secure and safe and the results are an accurate reflection of the will of the people. This was the case in 2020, 2022, 2024, and will be again in 2026.”

“People aren’t stupid,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said in reacting to Trump’s speech on MS NOW.

However, the senator said the address heightened her concerns that Trump may try to directly interfere in the upcoming midterms, such as by ordering the military to seize voting machines or ballots.

“The president refuses to rule out, as does his cabinet, sending in uniformed military,” Slotkin said. “The president has made it clear: this is not a joke to him. This is not something he just says off-handedly. He’s obsessed with it.

During Trump’s speech, the White House released documents from the FBI’s probe into the matter. 

“Tonight, I’m asking the FBI director to ensure the matter is fully investigated and to work with the Department of Justice to prosecute those responsible for any crimes,” Trump said.

Trump’s directive to FBI Director Patel came after the bureau raided the offices of a pro-democracy organization that helps register voters in Ohio last month in an alarming escalation against civil rights organizations.